Retail sales outlets such as convenience stores and gas stations often receive a significant volume of cash receipts and need to secure those receipts from robbery or theft on the premises. Many such outlets, particularly those anticipating a high volume of cash receipts throughout their times of operation, contract with an armored-car service to pick up the receipts from the premises. Those services typically transport a merchant's receipts to a central location where the currency is counted, and then deposits the currency in a bank account for the benefit of the merchant. By thus arranging for periodic cash pickups, the reduced amount of cash remaining at the retail facility may present a less-inviting target for robbers and reduces the amount of money at risk if a robbery does take place.
Although armored-car pickups or other periodic cash deposits will reduce the maximum amount of currency on the premises, many retail sales establishments still prefer to maintain a relatively secure location for storing currency while awaiting pickup or deposit. This need is particularly desirable for facilities such as convenience stores, gas stations, and other facilities having substantial receipts in cash or other negotiables, and remaining open around the clock with little or no staff apart from the cashiers on the premises. Those cashiers close out their cash registers or other point-of-sale terminals at the end of their shifts, and usually transfer the receipts to a secure location within the premises for subsequent pickup or deposit. However, cashiers often are encouraged or instructed to remove currency from their cash drawers from time to time during a shift, to reduce the amount of money at risk if a robbery occurs. This removed currency likewise is transferred to a relatively secure location on the premises, awaiting pickup. In most retail facilities, it is desired to segregate the cash receipts for which each cashier is responsible, so as to maintain personal accountability for the cash removed from their cash drawers.
The conventional safe, equipped either with a combination lock or a key lock, is one possible secure location for temporarily storing currency awaiting pickup from a retail facility or other location. The obvious disadvantage of the conventional safe in that environment, however, is that the cashier or other store personnel must know the combination or have a key that opens the safe, in order to make periodic transfers of currency into the safe. That requirement significantly diminishes the benefit of transferring currency from cash registers to the safe, because an armed robber may coerce the store personnel into opening the safe.
So-called drop safes have become known in the art, to overcome the security problems associated with using a conventional safe for temporary storage of currency. A drop safe typically has a slot into which the cashiers may insert an envelope containing currency removed from the cash drawers during or at the end of each shift. The combination or key required for opening the safe is not available to anyone on the premises; only the armored-car personnel or the store manager can open the safe. An armed robber thus can, at most, steal only the currency in the cash drawers at the time. Moreover, cashiers must remember to transfer currency to the drop safe at certain times or upon checking cash-drawer receipts to see whether currency on hand exceeds some set amount. Although conventional drop safes thus are an improvement over the conventional safe for temporary secured storage of currency, such safes still require each cashier to place receipts in a separate envelope, preferably marked with the cashier's name, before placing the currency into the drop slot of the safe. The cashier or store manager also must keep a log showing the amounts deposited and the name of the person making each deposit. That procedure is time-consuming and thus may not be followed, especially by cashiers who must serve a steady volume of customers.
Accordingly, it is an object of the present invention to provide an improved drop safe for receiving currency or other valuables.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a drop safe that can automatically inspect currency presented for deposit, accept and count those bills that meet a predetermined minimum standard of quality, and reject those bills that fail to meet the quality standard.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a drop safe that maintains a running tally of currency accepted for deposit into the safe.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a drop safe that permits the manual deposit of rejected bills or other items not acceptable or readable by a currency acceptor mechanism.
It is another object of the present invention to provide a drop safe having a manual drop for envelopes or the like in addition to one or more currency acceptors for transferring currency into the safe.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a drop safe having an improved locking mechanism.
It is yet a further object of the present invention to provide a drop safe having an improved mechanism for controlling the opening of a door to the safe.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide a drop safe that can identify and count currency placed in the safe by several persons or at different times.
It is a further object of the present invention to provide a drop safe in which currency placed into the safe becomes disposed in at least one separate removable container within the safe.
It is still another object of the present invention to provide an improved drop safe that interacts with a point-of-sale terminal.
Other objects and advantages of the present invention will become more readily apparent from the following description of the invention arid the preferred embodiment thereof.